I have 3 branches.
Each branch has 2 DCs.
Up until a few days ago they were all running Server 2003.
I upgraded 2 DCs to Server 2008 R2.
On the 2 servers that are running Server 2008 R2, I'm unable to open the Group Policy Management Console.
I get the following error message:"The specified domain controller could not be contacted. This affects all sites in the console for the following forest.
Forest: domain.local
The error was:
The specified domain controller either does not exist or could not be contacted."

The are some options at the bottom -
- Choose a different domain controller
- Retry
- Remove all sites in this forest from the console

Can anyone tell me why this is happening?
I demoted the 2 DCs before I reinstalled the Operating System. The server names and IP addresses didn't change. I can remotely access the servers, etc and everything appears to be operational except for this issue (although there may be more issues I'm unaware of).

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@Will:
See attached for the output from the commands you asked me to run.
These commands were run on one of the Server 2008 R2 servers - don't know if that's where I should have run them. There are some errors/warnings but I'm not sure how to decipher them.

@UptimeSystems:
The NETLOGON folder and SYSVOL folder are showing up as shared folders when going to \\SERVER2008R2
The 2 servers that are running Server 2008 R2 are fresh installs - not upgrades. Not sure I understood what you asked.output.txt

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I feel like AD Sites and Services may be hinting at the issue.
Like I said, we have 3 sites (NNJ, SNJ and PA).
The servers we upgraded to Server 2008 R2 are in BOLD.
The NTDS Settings look strange to me...

OK well the missing connections are clearly NOT being created automatically so I went ahead and created them.
As of right now, I can access the GPMC successfully from the 2 new DCs.
I don't know why I had to manually create the connections though. I'm not feeling too good about the domain's health at the moment ...

All you need to do to allow the connections be to created automatically is do the following...
- open sites and services
- expand servers
- expand the DC that is having issues
- right click NTDS settings
- All Tasks
- Check Replicaiton Topology

Once you do this it will generate new connections for this DC based on the best logical route/path. Creating manual connections will work, but if a connection is down the Knowledge Consistency Checker will not re-create the connections to a DC that is online.

If replication is working now then you should be fine. Just follow the steps above to create connections automatically.

When I remove the manually created connection and run the "check replication topography" it doesn't re-create the connection to the DC in the main branch.
The only automatically created connection is the one to/from the DC on the same subnet.

I still never figured out how to make the connections AUTOMATIC but that's not technically the question I originally asked so I'm assigning you points for helping me with the initial question. As of now, I still can't automatically create the connections but we will see what happens when I finish upgrading all DCs to Server 2008 R2.